Easy Kill
by songandsilence
Summary: You kill me, you always know the perfect thing to say. I know what I should do but I just can't walk away. Mal/Inara.
1. Chapter 1

A/N: Inspired by the song 'Kill' by Jimmy Eat World.

And, as usual, x-posted on LJ and I'm still worried about how I got Mal, but here it is. This is one of my first forays into writing any Firefly fanfiction, so bear with me a little! Thanks, and enjoy!

Always Been the Easy Kill

With a fierce intent on pain, Inara hurled a shirt into the packing crate. Then she paused and took a deep breath to regain herself after she let her anger get the better of her. It didn't happen often, but when it did it was usually because of one Malcolm Reynolds.

She sighed, smoothing her pale skirt unnecessarily. She had to go. She had to.

_Why?_ Whispered that obnoxious little voice that sounding astoundingly like a certain petty thief. _Why do you have to go?_

_If only he'd say that to me, _she thought. Kneeling gracefully to fold the blouse again, she used the moment of organization to second-guess her decision. Again.

Her limbs ached as she thought of Mal – hard, tough Mal Reynolds – about to open up to her. After all these months of tension, of banter…but as he had been speaking she had never been more terrified in her life.

So she had ended it before it could begin.

She told herself it was House rules. No attachments, no feelings. Certainly no love, not that she was in love with Mal. Of course not. She told herself she wasn't. No, it was rules. She simply stayed inside the rules, he did not. Their worlds could never meet.

And yet here she was, on Serenity, the only place she felt truly at home, this ship that she loved, and their worlds met. Not necessarily well or neatly, but they melded and mixed as well as they could.

Her eyes drifted to the walls of her shuttle, bare grey now that her deep-colored silks had been taken down. It was strange, that she should love a ship so much; it was just metal parts, after all. But somehow it seemed like there was a beating heart inside the metal walls that made them warm.

_Mal_, whispered that voice, but she pushed it away. In truth, it wasn't just Mal that was the heart. The entire crew made up the heart, though Mal was certainly at the center of it.

With an aggravated sigh, she tossed a book haphazardly in a box. Then, staring at it, she was struck with inspiration.

That damn man would not be rid of her. She'd be gone, technically, but she would leave something behind…

Smiling a little deviously, she picked a medium-sized box and pulled it out. She put in her black trouser-gold kimono outfit (it smelled intensely of her incense) and a strange leather outfit a client had bought her once. It was a little odd but leather and revealing, so she would leave it to tease his mind. She also set down her bolt thrower, gently, knowing she wouldn't need it wherever she was going. A blue sundress went in next, followed by a few odd sundries and other lovely smelling things. With a sigh she shut the box, staring at it. Then she scoffed.

"What am I doing?" she said softly, and bent to unpack the box.

"Talkin' to yourself?"

She jerked upright as Mal entered her shuttle, her entire body tense as a bowstring. He was standing by the door, arms crossed over his chest, eyebrows raised. He was standing in that easy-going, loose-shouldered way he did when he was incredibly tense. Inara sighed mentally. As mysterious as this man was, she was good enough to know that he tried too hard to seem at ease. When his face was that relaxed, his eyes that calm, he was wired.

"Of course not, Captain. You're just hearing things." Her reply was flippant, but she didn't want to talk to him. It hurt too much.

"Been known to happen," he conceded. "Not often, but sometimes." He was trying to joke, and Inara took a deep breath to swallow her pounding heart. She turned and began to fold items of clothing again to give herself something to do. After some silence, Mal cleared his throat. "All set, then? We'll be on Beaumonde in less than 24 hours. You're getting a transport from there to the training house, _dui le_?"

"_Wie_," she replied shortly, hoping he would leave. That was the whole point of this, wasn't it? To get as far away from Malcolm Reynolds as possible?

"You oughtta be extra careful with those transport ships. Never know what you could get into. All sorts of trouble."

She rolled her eyes and then turned to him. "I can handle myself perfectly well, Mal. And _Serenity_ is sometimes a transport ship; is she an exception to the rule?"

"Nope. My point exactly." He grinned, and pain lanced up her arms and into her chest. She remembered a night some time ago, right before they had run out of gas, when he had smirked at her like that. It made her stare for a moment before she turned away again.

"Hm," was all she could manage. Silence again fell in the small space, and Inara held her breath, waiting for him to leave. He didn't, though, and instead began to walk aimlessly, glancing at her things.

"So, a training house for whores, huh?" He said it casually but she glared at him.

"Mal – "

"What do they ask you to do there, I reckon? Train legions of new whores, the art of lying. Wiles."

The man had called her a whore countless times. Why did it always hurt so much? She clenched her jaw and ignored it.

"Mal, you have no right – "

"Damn right," he interrupted. They stared at each other for a long breath, frozen. Inara marveled at the emotion behind his blue eyes, her heart thudding in her chest. "No right at all."

Every nerve in her body was on fire, her instincts telling her, despite all the pain and stupidity, to go to him. Both of them seemed unwilling to move, _unable_ to move. She took an unsteady breath.

And then he turned and walked away. When he left the shuttle, Inara sat shakily on one of the boxes, taking deep breaths. She would not cry. She would not. She was leaving. Leaving because of that man and how he infuriated her. Because he was too strong and too protective and too true. Because there was the promise of something in the air, and it terrified her too much.

She stood and slowly began to pack again.

She left one box.


	2. Chapter 2

Mal was having a really bad day. The kind of day where a job goes south for no apparent reason and they have to bust out in a hurry, and then River goes a little crazier and throws their only fresh food left on the walls, and then Kaylee tells him that some damned part or another needs fixing.

And this time, he was going to listen to her. The problem was, what with the job having gone south and all, they're more than a little short on money.

He wandered the halls after most of the crew had gone to sleep, save for Wash up on the bridge and Zoe keeping him company. He tried not to think about what that entailed. And not only because it was his best friend and that damned pilot (who he would probably never really admit to liking), but it made him feel lonelier.

_Serenity_ was humming around him, her sleek walls cool and soothing as he ran his hands over them. Usually she was all he needed. Having her kept him going. But as he leaned on the railing above the cargo hold, he sensed a presence beside him. Or, rather, a lack thereof.

He glanced to his left, almost expecting to see Inara leaning there beside him in a moment of silent camaraderie turned incredibly sour. He let himself dwell for a moment on the imaginary line of her neck, her cloud of dark curls.

With a sigh he let his head fall, weariness draping over him like an over-heavy blanket. But, as exhausted as he was, he couldn't sleep. The darkness behind his eyelids looked a little too much like dark hair to give him any rest.

Mal raised his head and stared out over the cargo bay. Some days it felt a bit too much like the world was crumbling beneath his feet. Like _Serenity_ was falling out from under him. He knew he was being surly towards the crew and walking through his days like one dead, but he couldn't shake it. And now the Shepherd was talking about settling down somewhere that needed him, being a real Shepherd again.

He was lost. He was in the woods, and for once couldn't seem to find the path.

His feet started walking again, and he followed without having any real notion of where he was going. When he blinked and realized where he was, he almost turned around and left as soon as possible. But something stopped him.

There, in the middle of Inara's supposedly-vacated shuttle, was a box.

Mal paused and stared at it, not really sure what to do. His ma's voice in the back of his head was telling him to turn and walk away and _never_ look through a lady's things. The _other_ voice in his head (which at this point was sounding disturbingly like Jayne) was telling him to go for it. Right now.

Slowly, Mal approached the box, as if afraid it might bite. As slowly, he pulled open the lid and peered inside.

A wave of scent hit him. Mal froze. Somehow this box and whatever was in it captured exactly how Inara smelled – like sandalwood incense with something a bit more exotic and spicy underneath it. Smelling it now was like a swift kick to the stomach.

But for some reason Mal kept looking. He dug into the box and pulled out some black and gold outfit and discarded it just as quickly, uninterested. The next thing his hand touched was a long, thin rod that looked incredibly dangerous when he pulled it out. He fiddled with it a little and decided it was some type of weapon and set upon wondering why Inara had it. Curiosity piqued, he went back to the box.

When his hand touched leather, he almost pulled back. A thousand images jumped through his mind of Inara in various – minimal – leather get ups. And as he pulled the small leather…bra…looking…thing out of the box, he was rewarded.

His mouth went a little dry just looking at it. What in the name of everything holy was Inara doing prancing around in this thing? It barely looked big enough for River's tiny frame, let alone Inara…his mind slipped into overdrive then, imagining Inara in the tiny strip of dark brown leather, smiling coyly.

Hastily, he shoved the…thing back into the box and stood, taking a deep breath. The smell of Inara's incense still hung in the air, but the musty scent the shuttle was acquiring made him forget it a little. A little.

Slowly, he forced his hands to put the clothing back into the box, folded as best he could, and to close the lid. Then he turned and left, his steps feeling wearier than ever as he walked away from the shuttle.


End file.
